Bad Blood
by Banana Kisses
Summary: They're related by blood—it doesn't mean they care. The forgotten son, the vengeful mother, the brother with the long shadow. They preferred to keep out of messy affairs, but blood is easy to clean from under one's fingernails. A collection of oneshots following the lives of Norta's royal family.
1. Maven: Shadow

He was a prince.

And princes should never suffer such indignities. Princes are not meant to be scorned. Princes should not be refused.

_Your Excellency._

The throne was his. From the moment of his conception, his creation, it belonged to him.

_My Prince._

He wanted Norta. He _deserved_ Norta.

_Your Most Charming Highness._

And never would he let anyone take that from him.

* * *

Fire had always been at the root of it.

Who was better at controlling their powers. Who was better at burning things. Who was better at _winning. _As one would've guessed, little Mavey was always the one to lose.

The young prince had often taken it in stride, vowing to do better after every loss. His brother would tower over him, a glint of amusement in his eye. He never did let Maven win. After every fight, Maven would cry to his mother with bruises on his face and body. Teeth would be missing. Silver blood would be trickling from his nose or from a gash on his forehead. Elara would call for a healer and cradle her son in her arms. singing him to sleep. Once, he had woken early and had overheard her yelling at his father to punish Cal for his violence.

What Elara didn't know was that Maven had often been the one to instigate those fights.

A little burst of flame in Cal's direction, a slight push or a slap from from his little hand. Anything was enough to get his fiery brother going, and Maven did everything in his power to get Cal to fight him. He would win this time. _This time. _It became a mantra, swirling in his head and roaring at the slightest provocation. Every training session. _This time._ Every test, every essay, every history lesson. _This time._ Every blushing young girl that asked them to dance at balls. _This time._

But every time was _this time. _Maven had never won. He was always pushed to the ground, defeated, conquered. Everything became a competition—who was the most powerful, who was the most handsome, who was the most talented. As the heir to the throne, Cal already had an advantage over his brother, having been born first. Having been born of a woman that the king _loved_. Unlike Queen Elara, who seemed to hold as much contempt for Tiberias as he held for her. Maven had never seen them kiss. Never seen them cuddle. Never seen them whisper lovingly to each other, gaze at each other from across the dinner table, or walk together, his father putting a gentle hand on her back. His fingers touching her skin in a silent promise that she was his, and that he was hers.

They didn't even share their chambers. They slept apart, in opposite ends of the palace. Maven had heard whispers of how Coriane and his father had been such wild lovers, sometimes coming out with ruffled hair and wrinkled clothes and blotchy faces, obviously up to no good. Cal had even been named after the king, another Tiberias. Tiberias Calore the seventh. And Maven was just Maven. He wasn't even sure if it was a royal name—he was Maven the first and only.

While Elara obviously hated her husband, the same could not be said about Maven. She was the most doting mother that had ever lived, lavishing every possible luxury on her only child. She paid more attention to him than to anyone else in the world; no one had ever seen the queen happier than when she was pregnant, giggling softly every time her little boy moved inside her.

But Elara could never replace the king. Maven had never been invited to hunt with his father and brother, despite being fifteen and fully capable with a gun. _You're too weak, too skinny,_ the king had said. _It would do you good to eat a little more._ Maven would act indignant and shrug it off, but it always hurt. Every blow was like the first one. He hated it when his father compared him to his brother, the son of Coriane, the woman he loved. The crown prince, the handsome, intelligent Tiberias Calore the seventh, heir to the flaming crown. Maven just wasn't good enough. He would _never_ be good enough.

In his father's eyes, he was merely the shadow to the flame.


	2. Elara: Sketches

She whispered into his ear...

_I want you more than anything._

...running her hands over his chest, resting her head in the crook of his neck...

_And you love me, you know you do._

* * *

Elara grunted as she fidgeted with her skin-tight gown. The seam on the back itched her skin like never before. She was every bit the noblewoman, with her made-up face and hair teased back so tight that her scalp still tingled, although her handmaiden had twisted her moon-blonde locks into an intricate braid nearly an hour ago.

"Elara, stop slouching."

Elara let out a squeak as an arm came and thwacked her on the back, and her spine straightened immediately at the brute force. Her mother stood over her with a frown that rivalled hers. "I'm sorry, Mother," Elara whispered, folding her hands in front of her.

Antonia Merandus narrowed her eyes, fingering her lacy fan made of gold and black. Her entire garb was dark and shimmering, indicating her position as a daughter of House Provos. "Pay attention," she whispered, brushing back a loose strand of her daughter's hair with her mind. "Queenstrial is in less than a month, and you will be representing your house, your father and brothers. You must win the king's affections, and it's not by dawdling in your own world that you'll accomplish this."

Elara frowned. _Queenstrial. _The word made her stomach tie in knots. Ever since Queen Coriane's death six months ago, all of Archeon was buzzing about the king's selection of a new wife. Elara was baffled at how King Tiberias would get remarried within only half a year of the queen's death. Maybe the pressure of the court got to him. Now that she was seventeen and eligible, Lord Merandus had insisted that his only daughter fight for the throne of Norta, and had she not been raised obedient, Elara would've had the mother of all fits right there in the dining room.

Elara shook her head and sighed as Antonia took a seat beside her. Her mother's eyes darted to her left, and Elara begrudgingly focused her gaze down into the arena where another fight was about to begin. The two fighters came out, a whisper and a nymph, each showing off their powers in a flamboyant display meant to entrance the audience—just like Elara was expected to do in front of the king and the rest of the nobility. Although it amused her slightly to watch someone with the same powers as her own decimate his opponent, these fights had been routine since she was a child. The gong is rung, silver blood is spilt, the victor is declared, the casualties are tended to by healers. Same old, same old. Elara forced herself to keep on watching.

But before long, she found herself peering at the box next to that of Merandus, the members of House Haven watching the match with a feral sort of hunger in their eyes. All except one—the youngest son, Tybalt, had his stare fixated on Elara. The girl met his gaze, and her chalky cheeks flushed their ghostly shade of silver. Tybalt Haven had been making eyes at her since he moved back to Archeon last spring, and every time she saw him, her heart would beat faster than ever before, wanton heat flooding through her body. Way too often during her lessons, she would drift away into fantasies of him kissing her, holding her close, how good it felt when he touched her pale skin, throaty moans escaping her—

Elara shuddered, although it wasn't at all cold in the spacious arena. The clang of armour against armour made her ears ring. She tore her gaze away from that of the Haven boy.

"Are you alright, dear?" Antonia asked, her eyebrows raised suspiciously. "You've been acting strange lately." She crossed her legs, a slit in her dress revealing her lovely tanned skin. Elara had certainly not taken after her mother, being white as a ghost like her father and brothers.

"I'm quite tired," Elara lied, trying to soothe her ragged breathing and calm her pounding heart. She was suddenly warm, unbearably so. She turned her head so that her mother couldn't see her flushed skin, nor the tiny beads of sweat that began to run down the nape of her neck.

"Of course." Her mother chuckled. "Serves you right for doodling until one in the morning."

Elara's fists clenched slightly in her lap, but her face remained a blank slate. _It's not doodling, it's art. _"Perhaps you're right."

She didn't hear her mother's response—she was much too busy trying to soothe the burning ache of her lust.

* * *

"Sam, stay out of my head," Elara spat, her fist clenching around the pencil that she held over her paper. Samson simply laughed, draping an arm across his sister's shoulders, playing with the feeble waves of her mind.

"Oh, stop it. You're so annoying when you whine."

Elara pursed her lips, gripping onto his ear with a sharp nail. Samson let out a grunt. "If you weren't so annoying, then I wouldn't have any reason to whine." _Scritch, scratch_. She shaded in the second eye of the tiger on the page, drawn in black and white with the kind of ferocity that Elara was so good at putting down on paper.

Samson backed away, rubbing his sore ear with a moan. "Ow...you're so _mean_, Ellie..." he whimpered, and Elara snorted.

"Who's whining now?"

Samson stuck out his tongue, the child. Despite being nineteen years old and already towering over their father, he acted more juvenile than their ten-year-old cousins.

Elara quickly grabbed the black folder that had been discarded across her desk and slipped her drawing in before Samson could vandalize it. She stood, shoving him out of her way. "Get out, doofus. Don't you have training?"

Samson put a finger to his lips. "Don't mention it to Father. He'll drag me in there by my toes." His face crumpled. "I'm much too tired to face Lady Melanie today."

"You're just _lazy_. Lady Melanie lets you do whatever you want."

"_You're_ just bitter because she hates you and makes you sort her files all the time."

Elara flushed. "It's against the rules!" she said indignantly. "The only reason she still agrees to teach me is to use me for free labour."

Samson picked up her folder, rummaging through her drawings. Elara let out an angry cry, attempting in vain to snatch it back. Samson pulled out the last page and snorted. "Who's this?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Elara blushed as Tybalt Haven's eyes stared back at her, captured perfectly in coloured pencil.

"N-no one," she stammered.

Samson nodded, sighing obnoxiously. "Is your _lover_, sister dearest?" He pursed his lips, bringing the drawing to his face. "Do you spend your time kissing your imaginary boyfriend?"

As much as it hurt her to do so, she snatched the paper from his grip, tearing it to shreds. She wanted to tell him that Tybalt was real and very much interested in her, but she knew that Samson would just go babble about it to their father, and then House Haven would be in deep deep water.

"And you're never getting a wife _ever_! Not even in a thousand years!"

Samson made a face. "So? I hate girls. Way too _dramatic._" He put a hand to his forehead, posing. Elara swat him away, stuffing her folder in her desk drawer before Samson could get his sticky fingers on it again.


	3. Maven: Freezing Front

Maven shuddered as the cold wind blew through his hair. His breath came out in little puffs and the tip of his nose had turned silver. Slumped over his cot, he didn't notice the crunch of boots in the snow as someone approached him. Maven shivered. His scrawny body seemed as breakable as glass in the arctic weather. He mentally cursed his father. _Making me go to the front in mid-February,_ he grumbled. _Yes, that will make me as tough as Cal, if I don't become a popsicle first._

"Would you like my coat?" said a boy, his face flooded with concern. Maven looked up, blinking away the snow front his lashes. The boy's own cheeks were flushed red with the cold, and his threadbare jacket had lost nearly all its buttons. Without it, Maven knew that he would freeze to death before the guns ever got to him.

"No thank you," the prince mumbled. His teeth chattered. "_You_ need it."

"But you're freezing." The boy smiled. "And besides, I'm from the North. I can handle the cold."

Maven tucked his hands in his sleeves, warming the bracelets against his skin. He let out a sigh of relief. "I'm alright now." He looked up to the tall Red boy, analyzing his appearance. "Shouldn't you be on the field?"

Fear crossed the boy's features, and his head whipped around. "Technically, yes." He put a finger to his lips. "But a few of my comrades are trying to care for Joshua. Please don't tell the officers," he pleaded. "They'll just throw us back out. We can't let him die."

Maven followed his gaze to the makeshift tent across from his own, where a groaning soldier lied bloody and bandaged on a cot. Three other men were scurrying around, worry and fear flooding their faces. Ice formed in the pits of his belly, although he had already seen countless soldiers die in much more gruesome ways.

"I won't say anything," Maven said. He scanned the perimeter for any sign of guards or his brother, but the camp was eerily silent. Cal and the generals were at a negotiation with the Lakeland officers—a futile waste of time. Maven had been fully content with sleeping in and taking it easy.

The boy blinked, making sure to stay out of the Silver tent. He didn't recognize the prince before him, as Maven could tell from his lack of formality, but he knew to always be wary of his betters. "I don't mean to be rude," he said, "but I don't believe I've ever seen you before. Is your father an officer?"

Maven looked down at his boots. "No."

"Well, I'm Thomas, if you wanted to know."

The prince kept his head down, feigning indifference. "Thank you, Thomas. Perhaps I'll see you around."

Thomas smiled despite the cold, and made the traditional soldier's salute. Maven watched as he walked away, trying to block out the sobs of the dying man.


End file.
